The Traitors and Celebrity Traitors: a blagger’s guide to the BBC TV show

It is time for me to confess — I have betrayed The Traitors. Or rather, I was never faithful to begin with. With 11.7m people watching, I feel like one of the few people in Great Britain who has never watched an episode in its entirety. But that means there’s 57.5m of us who only have a hazy idea about what goes on inside that castle.

Even if you’re not tuning in, it’s now such a pop culture behemoth that you simply can’t escape it. For several weeks of the year I am doomed to blag my way through conversations about the heroes and villains of the series. Every pub trip or long car journey bluffing my way through gossip and hearsay, afraid of being rumbled like a proverbial Traitor.

With that in mind, here’s my blagger’s guide to The Traitors extended universe:

My first mistake was presuming that everyone was some kind of famous personality from the jump. But no, in a normal season, the competitors are plucked from the general public.

Presumably the BBC does a lot of scouting and interviewing to get the perfect mix of people that are just unhinged enough to make great television but not going to fully lose their marbles after a few episodes.

This has lead to the reality TV scourge of fame-hungry wannabe influencers lining up to get cast in the series, but it’s also given us breakout stars such as [checks notes] a ginger man named Paul who was super mean to everyone. I guess it’s better than being a lower tier Love Islander doomed to the purgatory of club night appearances in student towns.

Ever had board game-obsessed friends? Then you’ve likely been inveigled into playing a version of this game.

For the uninitiated: a group is assembled in a location and a minority are chosen as the villains (mafia members, bitey werewolves, and in this case the rather medieval-sounding ‘traitors’) who conspire to bump off villagers (here, the ‘faithful’) one by one. In between fake murders the innocent majority must attempt to deduce who among them is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s like Wink Murder, with strategy.

The Faithful must try to unmask the deceivers by voting on their most suspicious castle-mates, while the Traitors attempt to avoid detection. The winning faction wins some money, I’m pretty sure. For the Faithful it’s split among survivors, while the Traitors get to swipe the lot if they win.

Who are the Faithful faithful to? Unclear but I imagine its a cult worshipping Claudia Winkelman and her anthropomorphic fringe.

I may not know much, but I know that a billowing cape is essential to the functioning of The Traitors. The hand-picked three who betray their fellow contestants get to swan around in big green hooded cloaks while waving lanterns like an am-dram staging of Macbeth. Only for B-roll purposes, I guess, because otherwise the rest would get suspicious.

But the cape master is, of course, Claudia Winkleman in a very different guise from her side hustle presenting Strictly Come Dancing. Boy, can she rock a capelet. And those Givenchy leather fold-over boots, which may be £1,795 a pop but have already sold out after she modelled them on screen. I’m 80 per cent sure the castle is in, like, Scotland, so a woolly outer layer is very sensible as well as stylish.

Look, I have a Masters in psychology and neuroscience. I know how messed up groups of people can get when under duress. This is the main reason why I’ve been too afraid to watch The Traitors thus far — it sounds like a horrifying social experiment.

Because the Faithful have to reach a vague consensus on who they think are Traitors, the show is a microcosm of groupthink. Anyone obviously intelligent and willing to apply logic gets immediately cast out, bringing to mind the purges of intellectuals throughout history. Want to understand why anti-intellectualism is flourishing currently? The Traitors will demonstrate how a society under threat starts taking aim at the wrong people.

Humans are so fallible and prone to heuristics. We want to trust but have zero idea how to suss out who is trustworthy. Which turns The Traitors into a popularity contest — win the hearts and minds of your fellow contestants and you guarantee your safety, even if you’re only out for some light back-stabbing.

Sounds miserable, but again this is why Celebrity Traitors has piqued my interest. The famous folk have previously rubbed shoulders and thus have a firmer handle on everyone’s character and status. Plus they understand how the content sausage gets made, so your drama is slightly more ethical. Still, they might go full Lord of the Flies on sweaty Alan Carr — only time will tell.

There’s something about random challenges to win, like, tokens or something?

Sorry, I’m totally clueless on this one but I think the producers just make up silly and mildly humiliatingly activities on the spot to give the contestants some enrichment in between the plotting/denouncing segments. Sounds fun, though.

Just say, “that roundtable was something, wasn’t it?” Or, “I can’t believe who the Traitors murdered last episode!”

The Celebrity Traitors is streaming now on BBC One and iPlayer